Beverly Byrne Page 11

  Amy flushed with pleasure. The party had been fearsomely expensive, but wonderful. And attention like this was good for Tommy's career. Too bad she hadn't talked more to the wife of his boss, but never mind, it had all been a huge success. She folded the newspaper and laid it on her breakfast tray. Then she looked at the mail. There were some bills, which she set aside for Tommy without opening them, and a few thank-you notes and invitations.

  There was also an envelope with the return address of the doctor she had consulted last week. Amy's fingers trembled slightly when she opened it.

  The news was positive. She was expecting a child. Slowly she lowered the sheet of stationery and looked out the window. The sun was pouring in through the sheer curtains. It would be hot again, but after today she and Tommy wouldn't be in the city.

  They were going to Long Island to spend the weekend with Lil and Warren. For a moment Amy regretted the plan. She would much rather tell Tommy her news here in their own home. She was fairly sure he would be pleased. Sometimes when they passed children on the street Tommy remarked that it would be nice when they had one of their own. Not that he ever said a lot about it. These days it seemed to Amy that they talked very little. How could they when they were always in the midst of people?

  She stretched out her hand and touched the embroidered linen sheet. They were alone here, of course. But it wasn't a place where they talked. Tommy made love to her often, but he never spoke to her afterward. He only rolled over and went to sleep. Sometimes she suspected he took her more in anger than love. That was crazy, wasn't it? Why should he be angry?

  Amy pressed her hands to her stomach and smiled. He wouldn't be angry about this. Pregnant. She said the word over in her mind and decided that she preferred it to any of the euphemisms women sometimes used. That's what she'd tell him as soon as the opportunity arose. I'm pregnant. And she would watch him smile his crooked smile and look the way he had last summer, when they were both so much younger.

  She dressed with care. A white linen dress with navy blue trim made her look cool, even if she didn't feel it. No jewelry, just her rings and an elegant gold watch which Tommy had given her a few weeks earlier. When she was satisfied with her appearance she clipped the newspaper column describing their party. Then she put it and the doctor's letter in the dressing table drawer. She'd show Tommy both things when they returned from Atlantic Beach.

  Her watch had a cover of blue enamel inlaid with pearls. Amy flipped it open and was surprised to see that it was nearly eleven. Suzy Randolph was coming for lunch in an hour.

  Then they were going to tea with some other friends. At five she was to meet Tommy at Pennsylvania Station, and they would take the train to Long Island. On impulse Amy opened the drawer and put the letter and the clipping in her pocket. They didn't know too many people on the island. Maybe they could take a walk on the beach, just the two of them, and she could share her news.

  She opened the bedroom door to find Delia standing with her hand raised, ready to knock. "You has a visitor, ma'am."

  "Miss Randolph! But she's early."

  "No ma'am, ain't Miss anybody. It's a gentleman."

  Amy opened the drawing room door and saw him. He stood with his back to her, a tall slim figure who had lost neither his elegant catlike grace, nor his aura of intensity. She hesitated on the threshold and swallowed hard. He was staring out the window, one hand propped casually on the wall, the other tucked in his pocket. She took a deep breath, then said, "Hello, Luke. "

  "Hello, Amy." He didn't turn around.

  "Tommy's at the office. We didn't expect you."

  "I haven't come to see Tommy."

  "I see."

  "I doubt that," he said softly. "I doubt that you see anything at all."

  He still hadn't faced her. Amy closed the door and moved forward. The room was pleasantly cool, and scented with lavender from a bowl of potpourri on the coffee table. She stood for a moment and waited. He didn't move. "Would you care for coffee? Or a sherry perhaps? I can ring for Delia."

  "I don't want anything."

  At last he spun round and looked at her. If anything, he was more handsome than she remembered. There was a tautness to him now, a kind of honing of all his features. He was more himself than ever.

  Luke was aware of her scrutiny. "Am I so changed?"

  "Not really. I'm just surprised to see you. And I didn't think you wore ordinary clothes anymore."

  He smiled for the first time. It was the same devastatingly beautiful smile which gleamed white against tanned skin. "We don't wear the habit outside the priory," he explained. "Certainly not on a visit to New York."

  "You're visiting, then?" Her voice cracked, making something unusual of the prosiac question.

  "Not exactly. I've been ill, a persistent grippe. Father Prior sent me to see a doctor here."

  "And what did he say?" She reached for a cigarette and fumbled with the table lighter.

  "Here." Luke ignored her question and took the lighter from her. He lit it with one flick of his finger. "When did you start smoking?"

  "A while ago." Amy inhaled gratefully.

  "Just like all the 'clever young things,' eh? Exquisite, ravishing, chic ... those are the operative words in your set, aren't they?"

  She flushed. "You saw that silly article."

  "This morning, in the doctor's waiting room."

  "They aren't my 'set,' as you put it. They're just people we know."

  He shrugged. "I didn't come here to talk about that anyway."

  They sat down. Amy chose a chair across from him, far enough away so perhaps he wouldn't notice her trembling hands. When Luke had come to the wedding she had been strengthened by the foreknowledge of his arrival. This was different. "Are you staying long? Tommy will be sorry he missed you." She was speaking too quickly, betraying her nervousness and hating herself for it.

  "I'm supposed to return to Dover tonight," he said. "And I told you, I didn't come to see Tommy."

  She raised her eyes and studied his face. "Why did you come, Luke?"

  "To see you."

  She didn't know what to say. She leaned forward and stubbed out her cigarette. Luke moved at the same time and took hold of her wrist. His grip was vicelike.

  "I'm supposed to make my first temporary vows next week," he said in a struggled voice. "I can't. I keep thinking about you. No matter how much I pray, I can't get you out of my mind."

  "Maybe you're not saying the right prayers," she said. "Try another formula." She wanted to hurt him, and she could see that she had.

  He let her go. "You never used to be cruel."

  "Perhaps I've grown up. I used to believe that everyone was sincere and honest."

  "Meaning that I'm not."

  "Meaning whatever you want." She stood up and walked away. An ormolu French clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour. "I have a luncheon guest coming in fifteen minutes. Will you join us? I'll have to send word to the kitchen."

  "Oh, for God's sake! Damn your bloody luncheon guest. Amy, don't you understand anything I'm saying? I'm talking about my whole life, my soul, in fact."

  "Your life, your soul," she repeated softly. "What about mine, Luke? Were you concerned about them when you allowed me to believe something that wasn't true? Are you worried about them now?"

  "I imagine I deserve that," he said. "But you're wrong. I didn't understand. I thought you were just a test, an infatuation. I didn't realize I was falling in love with you."

  Amy stood very still. She felt suddenly fragile. If she moved too quickly, she would shatter into bits.

  "Were you in love with me?" she asked in a whisper. "Are you now?"

  "Yes, God help me."

  Amy exhaled slowly. She had not realized that she'd been holding her breath.

  He rose and crossed to where she stood and put his hands on her shoulders. "You must listen to me," he said. The blue eyes were burning stars in his thin face. He sounded desperate, almost crazy. "There are ways to put things righ
t. It's complicated. The rules about church annulments are difficult. But if you married Tommy without really wanting to, only because of me, it might be grounds. We can't live our whole lives paying for one mistake."

  "What about the priesthood?" she said. "Have you changed your mind about that?"

  "Yes." He hesitated, then said very softly. "I think so. I don't know anything more."

  Amy felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders. He wore a navy linen blazer, and she could see the pronounced weave of the fabric. It was mesmerizing. She made herself raise her eyes and study the clean firm lines of his jaw, and his sensitive, mobile mouth. Then, unable to stop herself, she tilted her head and waited for his kiss.

  Luke touched his lips to hers with infinite gentleness. They stayed thus for a few moments, then he groaned and pulled her closer, clasping her head against his chest and burying his face in her hair. When he spoke again he sounded more normal, as if her kiss had restored his sanity. "Amy, oh, my dearest Amy. How did we make such a mess of things?"

  "We just did," she whispered, her words muffled against his pounding heart. "But what can we do about it now?"

  He groaned again. "I've thought about nothing else, but I simply don't know. What I said before, about a church annulment, I'm only kidding us both. You'd never get one. Maybe it doesn't matter. You can get a civil divorce. We can go away. To Africa perhaps. We'll start a new life."

  Amy closed her eyes and let the vision take possession of her for a brief moment. She and Luke together at Jericho the way she had dreamed it would be. Then she drew away slightly and leaned her head back so she could look into his face. "There's something you have to know. I'm going to have a baby."

  He let her go and stood with his arms hanging limply by his sides. She could read his thoughts in his eyes. In the sight of God, his God at any rate, she was his brother's wife.

  "It doesn't matter," Luke managed to say. The words were faltering and without conviction. "It doesn't change anything."

  The last bit of hope died inside her. "It changes everything," Amy said. "You'd never be able to forget that the child was Tommy's."

  "Would you?" he asked. His voice was hoarse with pain.

  "I don't know. But it wouldn't be the same for me. I'd feel bad about Tommy and what I'd done to him. But I wouldn't think I was going to hell. I don't believe in hell, or in 'forever and ever, world without end....' "

  He lifted one finger and traced the line of her cheek. "You're wrong about that, but in other ways you're very wise for one so young."

  "I've told you before, that's what growing up in Africa does."

  "Yes," he agreed. "You've told me before." The clock chimed noon. "I have to go."

  She nodded and walked with him to the door of the drawing room. "Don't come any further," he said. "I'll see myself out. I want to remember you in this room, here like this."

  ***

  Luke was deep in thought when he walked down the front steps to the street. He didn't notice the blonde girl until she said, "Oh, hello! Don't I know you?"

  He made an effort to struggle free of his preoccupations. "I don't think so," he said. Then he walked away.

  Suzy Randolph stared after him in puzzlement. The man was Luke Westerman, Tommy's brother. She'd met him a few years back at a debutante party.

  Later she thought more about it, and wondered why Amy had seemed so peculiar at lunch, and why she never mentioned her brother-in-law's visit.

  10

  AMY WALKED ATLANTIC BEACH ALONE. SHE HAD forgotten her plan to do this with Tommy, and tell him they were going to have a baby. Instead the sound of the breaking surf provided a chorus for her agony. She kept seeing and hearing Luke. She relived every moment of that extraordinary hour, everything he had said. It was mad, cruel! Why did he come and tell her these things now? Why did he wait until it was too late?

  "Too late." She spoke the words aloud. A lone gull squawked raucously in reply. Too late for what? To marry the man she loved, rather than take his brother as second best? Yes. But was it? Perhaps they could salvage something from the wreck they'd made. She could get a divorce.

  Luke could tell the Dominicans that he was not going to take vows and become a priest. Everything could be put right if they simply saw enough lawyers and spent enough time in the courts.

  She walked as far as the coast guard station and looked at the spot where she'd stood with Luke. She felt again the urgency of his embrace. The old memory mingled with the more recent one. And pain was a wound reopened after she'd thought it healed. The tide was going out and the sand was hard packed and damp, the way it had been that December day.

  Amy studied the imprints of her bare feet and watched them disappear beneath the lapping waves. They faded without a trace. Maybe she could make the last six months fade away in similar fashion. The gull circled and swooped, and its cry was laughter.

  Tommy's child was growing inside her. It would be an ever-present reminder of what had been, whatever she and Luke did. So would his religion.

  Amy threw back her head and looked at the empty blue sky and the sun. "You up there!" She shouted; "God, or whoever you are! You won't let him go, will you?" Her voice died without an echo.

  Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away, but they kept coming. It was true, and she knew it. That's the way it was in this country. It wasn't like Africa where the gods were part of nature, beings to be wooed so the rains would come and the crops would grow and the women be fecund. Here God was some kind of tyrant who demanded that people separate themselves from their humanity, their right to love and be loved.

  Whoever he was, this God in whom Luke believed, he would never give up. If Luke left the Dominicans for her, he would be enslaved by guilt, and trapped by her and by Tommy's child.

  Amy knelt in the sand. She doubled over in pain and stopped fighting the tears. If she prayed for anything, she who knew nothing of prayer, it was that this place would cease to exist.

  She wanted to raise her head and look around and see the shining grasslands of her childhood, with the snow-topped peak of Kilimanjaro in the distance.

  It did not appear. That dream was as impossible as the notion that she and Luke could turn back the clock and do things differently. "Too late," she repeated. Then she wiped her face and washed it in the cold Atlantic waters, and headed back to the house.

  Tommy was waiting for her, worried because she'd been gone so long. She saw him pacing anxiously in the front yard, and she knew a moment of tenderness, overlaid with guilt. "Sorry," she said. "I walked a long way and forgot the time."

  "Doesn't matter, as long as you're all right. I thought you might be lost."

  "No chance," she smiled. "It's just a long straight beach." She felt awful because he was looking at her with love, and he knew nothing of what had happened or what she had contemplated doing. All at once it seemed like a good time to tell him about the baby. A peace offering, despite the fact that Tommy didn't know about the war.

  "Would you like a short drive?" she suggested. "Just the two of us?" Warren kept a Packard motor car at the house.

  "No can do," Tommy said. "I invited some people. They'll be along in about twenty minutes. Tomorrow maybe."

  "Yes, tomorrow maybe. I'd better go and change and see if Lil wants any help with the preparations." She went inside without saying any more.

  The next day there was no opportunity for a drive. Tommy, Lil, and Warren went to Mass in Far Rocka-way and brought home more guests. After they left it was time for Warren to drive them to Lawrence where they caught the train for New York.

  In her bedroom that night Amy stared at the water-color of Jericho hanging by the dressing table. The old longings surfaced with new poignancy. There was such an empty place inside her. Only one thing would fill it. She must go home; she must get away from this alien city where everything conspired to cause her pain.

  She went downstairs in the morning thinking that she was in control of her emotions. But when she opened the Time
s it was filled with hateful, hurtful news that reminded her of her captivity in this place.

  "I hate this damn war! I hate it!" Amy flung the newspaper and its reports of the tank battle of the Somme across the breakfast table.

  Tommy was shocked by her intensity. She was white and trembling, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. "Hey, it's ok sweetheart. It's ok." He moved quickly to her side and held her head against his chest. "It's got to end pretty soon." He believed no such thing, but Amy need not know that. "What do we care anyway? Let the Europeans blow each other up. We're safe."